Tatoian v. Tyler

Citations

• 194 Conn. App. 1

Syllabus

The plaintiff trustee of a trust brought this action to recover damages from the defendant beneficiaries of the trust, B and J, for common-law and statutory (§ 52-568) vexatious litigation in connection with a prior action that J and other beneficiaries had commenced against the trustee and in which B had filed a cross complaint against the trustee. In that prior action, B and J had claimed that the trustee improperly failed to provide them with certain accountings of the trust before the death of the settlor, R. Judgment was rendered in favor of the trustee on the operative complaint of J and cross complaint of B after the partial granting of a motion for summary judgment and a jury verdict. Thereafter, the trustee brought this action, claiming that all of the counts against him in the prior action were terminated by way of summary judgment or resolved by the jury in his favor. The trial court found that the trustee had conceded that his action would fail if he did not to prove one of his vexatious litigation claims as to one of the claims by B and J in the prior action. The court rendered judgment in favor of B and J after it determined that the trustee had failed to prove that they lacked probable cause, as required under the common law and under § 52-568 (1), to sue him for failure to provide them with accountings, and had failed to prove that B and J had acted with malice, as required under § 52-568 (2). The trustee thereafter filed a motion for reargument and reconsidera- tion in which he claimed, inter alia, that the trial court had stated mistakenly in its memorandum of decision that he had conceded that his action would fail if he could not prove that B and J lacked probable cause to bring all of the counts in the prior action. The trial court granted the motion for reargument and reconsideration and rendered judgment for the trustee on his claim under § 52-568 (1), and rendered judgment for B and J as to the trustee's claims under the common law and § 52-